Not the first time I've mentioned it, but man do I have a backlog of much-wanted treasures that sit untried far too long at Chez Michelle.
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| indoor, bright CF lighting |
Toxic Seaweed is easily in the top 5 all-time greatest hits of Cult Nails, and though I missed buying it direct from them (it was a limited edition from 2012), I was lucky enough to score a brand new one in a destash some time (>1 year, sheesh) ago.
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| outdoor, bright afternoon sunlight |
To get that gorgeously deep dark emerald underwater color, patience will be necessary: Toxic Seaweed is quite sheer. I'm showing 3 coats here, and it's still a bit lighter than in the bottle; 4 coats would have been fine too. Fortunately, the formula was utterly lovely, very smooth and even, so no trouble at all to build it up. One could always layer it over a matching deep green to "conserve" the polish, but that ain't how I roll, yo.
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| indoor, bright CF lighting |
So what we have here is an explosion of light-grabbing glass fleck sparkle and a healthy dose of fire flakies, that kind that shifts from orange to bronze to red, in a sheer deep emerald jelly base. It's a ravishing color combo where the flakies play more in sight in lower light, then the blinding blaze of the glassfleck takes over in bright sun.
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| outdoor, bright sunlight |
This wore quite nicely on me, unusually for a jelly with only subtle tipwear after a couple of days, but after loving my super fun little crabs it was time for a more summery look.
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| outdoor, shady daylight |
I've stamped here with a watermelon slice from the MoYou London Geek plate 13, which is all random emojis. By themselves, the slices in El Corazon First Kiss were too plain, but painted over with Emily de Molly light green stamping polish for the rinds and black polish and a dotting tool to bring out the seeds, they now look a little too messy. Oh well, still cute!
Rating: Toxic Seaweed is a sparkly 4 out of 5 stars. I think it could have been just the slightest hair more opaque without masking the sparkle, but it did wear very nicely and that green is my jam.
Where to buy: since Cult closed up shop in 2015 and this was limited even before then, prowl destashes and blog sales and cross your fingers. The closest alternative I'm aware of is to find a bottle of LA Girl Crowdsurfing - it's an extremely sheer jade green with very similar glassfleck and fire flakies that you can layer over an emerald green to get a similar look.
~Michelle
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